Ben Sasse aided firm implementing Obamacare

Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse has built his Senate campaign on his opposition to Obamacare — but he once consulted for a firm that was working to implement it.

Sasse provided early “strategic advice” to former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt’s health care consulting firm while the firm pitched itself to clients in early 2010 to help implement the Affordable Care Act. Sasse is listed, along with his photograph and biography, as a “senior advisor” under the heading “Leavitt Partners team” in PowerPoint presentations from April and May 2010 in which Leavitt’s firm sold its Obamacare expertise.

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Titled “A Framework for Health Reform,” the presentations sought to explain various aspects of the law. One page lists the “funding sources” and “benefits” of the Affordable Care Act. Other pages detail the “10-year implementation process” and describe “structural shifts” in the health care industry as a result of the law.

The extent of Sasse’s involvement with Leavitt Partners is unclear — both the Sasse campaign and Leavitt’s firm insist he was never paid by the firm. But two former Leavitt managing directors recall appearing with him on company-sponsored panels. And a Leavitt official said the firm used the “senior advisor” designation “very loosely, but only in order to avoid confusion with our clients.”

Sasse and Leavitt have until now denied the Senate candidate had any involvement in Leavitt Partners. Upon being presented with the company documents listing Sasse’s name, the campaign and a spokesperson for Leavitt said Sasse was involved at the firm’s outset.

“Ben Sasse has been invited to dozens of health care conferences during his career. From what we can tell, he showed up at one of them and gave some free strategic advice on a health IT related project some years back,” Sasse senior adviser Jordan Gehrke said.

Leavitt spokeswoman Jordana Choucair initially said Sasse was never at the firm “as either a paid or unpaid consultant, advisor or as an employee.” In a subsequent email she reiterated that he was never paid by the firm but did provide assistance early on.

“During the early inception of LP, Ben did provide some unpaid advice on a health IT/wellness project,” Choucair said.

Sasse’s connection with Leavitt’s firm could undermine the first-time candidate’s image as an outsider who is laser-focused on repealing Obamacare. Leavitt, a former Utah governor and confidant of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential race, briefly became a political problem for the campaign when conservatives said he couldn’t be trusted because of his health care work.

Sasse — the president of Midland University, a small Lutheran school in Fremont, Neb., since Dec. 2010 — has made his opposition to the Affordable Care Act the driving theme of his campaign. He claims to have read the entire law and holds town hall meetings with a printed-out copy as a prop. Sasse also filmed a YouTube video in September saying it was time for “every Republican in Washington, starting with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to show some actual leadership” to rescind the heath care law.

Sasse and former state Treasurer Shane Osborn are the front-runners in Nebraska’s four-way GOP Senate primary to replace retiring GOP Sen. Mike Johanns. Whoever wins the May 13 primary is expected to coast to a general election victory in November.

With endorsements from the Club for Growth, Senate Conservatives Fund and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sasse, 42, has presented himself as the insurgent candidate in the race. Sarah Palin endorsed him Thursday morning.

Osborn, 39, a former Navy pilot, has backing from the conservative outside group FreedomWorks but is seen as the GOP establishment’s first choice, largely due to his winning statewide election in 2006 and better name recognition.

Osborn also has connections that could prove troublesome in a GOP primary. Academy Securities, a financial planning firm for which Osborn is the chief marketing officer, was named by the Treasury Department in March 2013 to help manage the sale of the federal government’s stock in General Motors as part of the disentanglement of federal assets under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.